


off the cuff

by calcliffbas



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Agni Kai (Avatar), Bending (Avatar), Ember Island (Avatar), F/M, Gen, Male Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:27:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26473384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calcliffbas/pseuds/calcliffbas
Summary: ”You any good with that sword?”Sokka fought hard not to puff his chest out and preen. “Well, y’know – don’t like tobragor anything, but… I mean,y’know. Master Piandao doesn’t just take onanyoneas a student, you know?”“You trained under Piandao?” The shopkeeper repeated, looking impressed. “Boy, youmustbe good. Can’t remember the last student Piandao took on before the Prince.”
Relationships: Sokka & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Suki (Avatar)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 280





	off the cuff

Sokka _loved_ lists. Toph might have claimed she ‘can’t see the point of lists’, but he’d gotten wise to her by now. He’d made a list of the times she made that joke, and after a week or so of referring to it, he didn’t even blink when she tried to mess with him. Now, he just took it in stride.

Or, at least, he _would_ have been able to take Toph’s jokes in stride, if she hadn’t given the list to Zuko. One fireball later, and Sokka was back to forgetting that the greatest earthbender in the world was also the greatest wind-up merchant in the world.

_(“Hah! Get it? Merchant? Because she’s a Bei Fong? Oh, man –”_

_“Hilarious, Sucker.”)_

It was funny! Toph just hated _everyone’s_ sense of humour. Except Zuko’s. _Unfair_. He didn’t even have a sense of humour!

 _Anyway_.

Katara had been mildly concerned that Sokka’s short-term memory had been so reliant on a piece of paper to remember something so important about Toph, but Toph had just shrugged and thrown a pebble at Sokka.

“Probably took a few too many hits to the head with his boomerang when he was little,” she had said. “Now his memory’s as fuzzy as Appa.”

Water Tribe loyalty apparently meant absolutely _nothing_ , as Katara had gone on to reminisce _at great length_ about the time an eleven-year-old Sokka had misjudged the flight of his boomerang, so it whacked him in the head and sent him staggering into the base of his watchtower, bringing a whole heap of snow down on him.

Even Suki had giggled! Sokka hadn’t giggled when she had told him about the time when she was nine when she had gotten her fan stuck in the floorboards of the Kyoshi dojo and pulled it out with such force that she had lost her footing and landed on her back!

_Anyway._

The _point_ is that Sokka loved lists. He loved lists, Suki, meat, planning, Suki, shopping, Space Sword, Suki, – Sokka was a simple guy with simple needs and a simple attitude to the things he loved. He’d tried to make an ordered list of the things he loved one time, but he ran into difficulties when he got to meat.

_(Did possum-chicken meat count separately to hippo-cow meat? Or did they both come under Meat? Oh, meat, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways…)_

A similar problem had come up when he had considered whether Kyoshi Warrior Suki was the same as Swimsuit Suki, and whether they were different to Midnight Suki. And then something else had popped up that Sokka had needed to take care of, and that had distracted him from the list.

So when Katara mentioned that they were running low on food supplies, Sokka knew what was coming.

_A shopping trip._

And not any shopping trip! A shopping trip with _Suki_ wherein he would need to _plan_ a route through Ember Island in order to avoid enemy birds, and make a _list_ of the _meat_ they would need to bring back to the beach house (all of the meat, possum-chicken, hippo-cow, Meat as a monolithic entity, _All. Of. The. Meat_ ). All he needed was an excuse to bring Space Sword with him and it was shaping up to be a prettttyyyyy perfect day out.

Especially because, with Aang being, you know, _the Avatar_ , and Zuko being, you know, _the traitor Prince of the Fire Nation_ , and Katara being ~~disloyal and from the~~ Water Tribe, and Toph being blind –

 _(See? He didn’t forget! My memory works just_ fine _, Katara!)_

 _Anyway_.

But, yeah, that meant that of their group, Suki and Sokka were the two people who could move about in broad daylight the most freely!

When Katara had pointed out that Sokka looked just as Water Tribe as she did, Suki had just jumped onto his back _(oof!)_ and wrapped her legs around his waist _(yay!)_ before smacking a kiss on his cheek. _(!! I!! love!! Suki!!!!)_

“Super-secret disguise,” she had explained smugly. “We’ll be a couple from the colonies.”

“Couple of weirdos,” Toph had replied sarcastically.

“They won’t suspect a thing,” Zuko said. Sokka hadn’t been sure if that had been sarcasm or not. Zuko’s sense of humour was, as has been previously mentioned, Not Great.

_(See, Toph? Who’s got poor short-term memory now?)_

_Anyway_.

So events had conspired to prove that Suki was a genius, and Sokka could look forward to an afternoon with his awesome, amazing, girlfriend in the town market. Who was he to argue with the universe? Life was pretty great when Suki was involved.

Sokka had been mentally composing a poetry list of the things he liked about Suki’s general existence when he was rudely interrupted.

_(Red looks great on her / like Appa looks great with fur / but her I prefer)_

“You a bender, kid?”

He resisted the very unmanly urge to yelp and duck his head. “Who, me?”

_(If I was a bender, would he have called me a man?)_

“Yeah, you,” the storekeeper nodded. He pointed at Space Sword and Sokka twitched slightly. “Got a fancy sword, but I don’t like assuming, you know?”

“Oh, yeah,” Sokka chuckled awkwardly. Part of him was just relieved that he wasn’t being asked to hand the sword over.

_(He wasn’t “overly attached”, Toph, it’s a warrior’s weapon!)_

“No, Lee isn’t a bender,” Suki chirped up, coming to stand by his shoulder and give him a smile and a playful nudge.

Sokka wondered whether there was, like, a cosmic law that just made Suki _right_ all the time. Maybe Aang would know. Universal constants seemed like Avatar stuff, right?

“You should see him play with his sword, though,” Suki added, giving Sokka what she might have intended to be a sly, flirty wink. She ended up putting Sokka in mind of those pirates Katara had annoyed.

_(Note to self: add scrolls to the shopping list! Since Toph and the Jerkbender keep using them for fireball target practice…)_

“I’d… rather not,” the storekeeper said with a grimace. Sokka could respect that. “He can just tell me instead. Lee, right?”

“Uh, yessir?”

“I’m Chen. You any good with that sword?”

Sokka fought hard not to puff his chest out and preen. “Well, y’know – don’t like to _brag_ or anything, but… I mean, _y’know_. Master Piandao doesn’t just take on _anyone_ as a student, you know?”

“You trained under Piandao?” Chen the shopkeeper repeated, looking impressed. “Boy, you _must_ be good. Can’t remember the last student Piandao took on before the Prince.”

_(Uhhhh…)_

“You mean Prince Zuko?” Suki asked. She had a _much_ better Pai Sho face than Sokka, he had to admit. The only thing that gave away her interest was the slight narrowing of her eyes and the way she shifted her weight onto the balls of her feet, like she was preparing for a fight.

_(I appreciate / the cute way she shifts her weight / Suki’s just so great)_

“Yah,” Chen said, spitting into a bowl on the counter. “Weird, that was. Only heard about it when he came back from Ba Sing Se. Guess they kept it quiet for a while.”

So… that was as useful as Sokka expected from some Fire Nation guy. Some stuff made more sense now, and some stuff made less sense. Sokka was okay with that.

“What do you mean, kept it quiet?” Suki asked. “Like… a cover-up?”

Her eyes sparkled with excitement, and whilst Sokka was _very much_ a fan (get it?) of intrigue and uncovering hidden secrets and Detective Work (he still had the Special Outfit), he was an even bigger fan _(get it??)_ of Suki when she was excited about something.

He stifled a (manly) lovelorn sigh.

Chen rolled his eyes. “Well, you know. If I were the Prince, I wouldn’t want to make a big deal about it, either.”

“About training with _Master Piandao?_ ” Sokka repeated in slight disbelief.

“Well, you know,” Chen shrugged. “You’re the Prince. You’ve got the Fire Lord as your daddy, your little sister bends blue fire – and then, what?” He snorted. “You’re swinging your wooden training swords around?”

“What’s wrong with swords?” Sokka asked. Maybe a little aggressively, but hey! Aggression was pretty manly! And if someone was talking trash about Space Swords, they needed to be put straight!

Chen raised his eyebrows. And his hands. Whoops. Okay, maybe Sokka had been a _little_ too aggressive. No big deal.

“Hey, nothing wrong with swords, kid. I’m not a bender either. Doesn’t matter what weird ideas the Fire Lord’s got about how benders shouldn’t learn to stab people, or whatever.”

Suki frowned. “The Fire Lord thinks you shouldn’t learn to fight with weapons if you’re a bender?”

“Look, lady –”

“Oh, my name’s Song.”

That made Chen pause. Yeah, when Suki took that tone? _Trouble_. With a capital T. _Super awesome_ trouble. “That an Earth Kingdom name?”

“Uh-huh,” she smiled, putting an arm around Sokka and kissing his cheek _(Suki was the best!!!)_ “We’re from the colonies – wanted to do a little sightseeing!”

“Right,” Chen nodded slowly. “Right. Well, you know – anyway, yeah, like you said. Fire Lord Ozai’s got this idea that it’s, I dunno, a _problem_ or something if you’re a bender who’s got to rely on something other than your bending.”

Sokka snorted. “Has he _met_ Master Piandao?”

“Probably not,” Chen said ponderously. “I mean, if Prince Zuko was learning to fight with swords, that’s not something you want the public knowing, you know? Nobody wants a Fire Lord who can’t _bend_.”

“But Zuko’s a great firebender,” Suki said confusedly.

Sokka coughed.

“I mean,” she added hastily. “That’s what I heard! About the traitor, Prince Zuko. Who we hate. And wouldn’t say anything good about.”

“Because he’s a dick,” Sokka added.

 _Man_ , it felt good to be able to say. Prince Ponytail was gone, but he figured he was still allowed a _slight_ grudge.

“Well, yeah, _everyone_ heard that,” Chen scoffed, spitting into the bowl again. “Little bastard comes back from Ba Sing Se, says he’s killed the Avatar – well, _sure_ he’s a great bender! Figures that when the truth came out, he ran off.”

“We’re from the colonies,” Sokka said slowly, trying to fit the pieces together in his head. “So we don’t get much news from the Fire Nation. What’re you talking about?”

Chen’s face perked up, but he leaned over the counter, narrowly missing putting his elbow in that bowl which Sokka was beginning to suspect was there for the sole purpose of giving him somewhere to aim his spit. Sokka also suspected, from the way Chen was being so talkative, that fresh faces you could gossip with were in hot demand on Ember Island.

_(Get it? Hot!)_

_Anyway._

“Well, you know how the Avatar tried to show up on the eclipse?”

Sokka stifled a wince. Just because he’d managed to break Dad out of the Boiling Rock, it didn’t mean he liked thinking about the day. He _still_ wasn’t sure where Bato might have been kept.

Suki covered him with a knowing nod. “Uh… sure?”

Chen nodded back just as knowingly. It was like watching an airball game played between Real Suki and… a fake-Suki that simply did not compare to the original. In any way. At all. Yikes.

“Well, you know,” Chen was saying, breaking Sokka out of his slightly horrifying thoughts. “You come back saying you’ve killed the Avatar, turns out the Avatar’s alive? _Someone’s_ a liar. We all heard when he came back that he was a great bender, so him training with Piandao? _Weird_ , yeah, but we all heard he’s a bender, you know? So it’s weird, but it’s not, like, a _problem_. But we all heard he killed the Avatar, too. So if he lied about killing the Avatar –” Chen gave them a meaningful look. “What else did he lie about, huh?”

“No way,” Sokka scoffed. “No way is Zuko not a bender. He’s a firebender! He bends. He’s a _bender_.”

“I think Lee’s right,” Suki said, sticking up for their friend. “Even if he didn’t kill the Avatar, I heard Prince Zuko’s a really good bender.”

_(“I thought you hated him?”_

_“I did. But then he helped you break me out of prison.”_

_“Oh, okay.”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“Cool.”)_

_(Spirits, he_ loved _Suki.)_

_Anyway._

“You say that,” Chen said. He had a glint in his eye and a smug smile that told Sokka he _loved_ being the guy who knew stuff. And Sokka could respect that – he liked being the guy who knew stuff, too! But Sokka knew _important_ stuff, like how to read a map, or how to snap his wrist so boomerang came back, or how to break into maximum-security Fire Nation prisons. Not dumb stuff like – like whatever Chen knew!

“You say that,” he repeated. “But _I_ heard, when he got banished? Kid didn’t even _bend_ in his Agni Kai.”

He folded his arms on the counter and nodded knowingly at them, as if he had just proven a great point and delivered an indefensible blow to… whatever they were arguing.

“We’re colony kids,” Suki reminded him. “So you’re going to have to talk to us like we’re _really_ dumb… What’s an Agni Kai?”

Chen scoffed and spat into the bowl again. _Man_ , that was close to his sleeve!

_(No, it’s not that impressive! It’s just… a precise demonstration of spit-bending. Okay, so it’s a little impressive. But it’s not jealousy! It’s just appreciation of a manly art!)_

“You kids don’t know _anything_ out there, do you?”

“Nope,” Sokka replied straight-facedly. “We’re completely clueless. Really isolated from the war, actually. Don’t have a clue what’s going on. Kind of stayed out of it up until now.”

Suki nudged his ankle a _little_ more painfully than she needed to, and _okay_ , maybe it wasn’t the right thing to say, what with Kyoshi being neutral for, like, a hundred years, but he hadn’t meant it like _that_ , okay?

Sokka sighed inwardly. He would have to apologise before Suki would let him kiss her now…

“So what’s an Agni Kai?” Suki asked.

“Ah, some firebending duel,” Chen said in a dismissive tone. “Doesn’t matter to folks like you and I, you’ve gotta be a firebender to do it – unless you’re the Prince, obviously, then you can just bend the rules – hah, get it? ‘Cause he can’t bend anything else…”

Normally, Sokka would be extremely appreciative of a joke like that –

_(1. Buy some paper. 2. Write that joke down. 3. Remember this list. 4. Wave your memory list in Toph’s face. 5. Except Toph wouldn’t be able to see your waving, so… never mind. ~~6\. Forget the list.~~ )_

“The Prince had to fight in a duel?” Suki asked, wrinkling her nose. “Is this, like, some weird royalty thing?”

Chen laughed. “Yeah, some weird royalty thing. Guess you could say that. Shit with him and his dad. Parents and kids, you know?”

Suki hadn’t told Sokka much about what life was like on Kyoshi Island, but he hadn’t remembered seeing many adults around, and, whilst it was _awesome_ that he was dating the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors, it was somewhat Less Awesome that the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors had been a sixteen-year-old girl. So maybe Suki didn’t know much about parents and kids.

Sokka, on the other hand, knew quite a bit about dads, but there was no way in all La’s great depths that he was going to compare his manly, brave, encouraging, strong _Dad_ to… the Jerkbender-in-Chief.

“Sure,” he managed instead. “Yeah, guess family’s weird when it’s Fire Nation royalty.”

“Weirder than for you and me, that’s for sure,” Chen said, acting all knowledgeable again. Ugh. Sokka was of a mind that the difference between what this guy _thought_ he knew and what he _actually_ knew was approaching Aunt Wu levels.

“Yeah, kids and parents,” the shopkeeper went on. “You guys are teenagers, right? You know how it was with your parents, when you were that age.”

Suki looked just as surprised as Sokka. “At what age?”

“Um – I think he was thirteen? Yeah, thirteen…”

Sokka actually put his hands up in the air at that point. “Wait, hold up. Zuko was _thirteen_ when he got banished?”

“Oh, yeah,” Chen nodded. “Must have been… what? Three years ago?” He scratched underneath his jaw. “Gotta be less than five… can’t be less than three.”

He continued mumbling to himself as Sokka and Suki exchanged a wide-eyed look.

_(When Sokka had been thirteen, he had given himself three concussions with boomerang and fallen out of his watchtower twice. Both were improvements on his totals from when he was twelve. Gran-Gran had always given him extra five-flavor soup when he had regained consciousness, because a brave warrior needed his strength.)_

And Zuko had been duelling and getting banished?

“How did he get banished at _thirteen?_ ” Suki asked disbelievingly.

Sokka nodded in agreement. Zuko was capable of a lot of dumb shit, true, but considering how dumb the Fire Nation was in general (sure, let’s throw the world out of balance and piss off all the spirits! Sounds like a _great_ plan!), Sokka could not begin to fathom how much _more_ dumb he would have had to have been as a thirteen-year-old dumbass to do something dumb enough to get banished.

“Your boyfriend doesn’t know?” Chen raised his eyebrows. “Thought you were older there, kid. You definitely look it.”

“I’m sixteen!” Sokka protested. “I’m practically halfway to seventeen – _and_ I shave!”

Chen gave him an assessing look. “Sixteen, huh? And you’re not a bender?”

“Uh – yeah?”

“But he’s really good with his sword,” Suki reminded them. “And fans, too!”

“Fans are awesome,” Sokka said automatically. “They’re an incredibly dangerous weapon to be wielded with honor and approached with extreme caution.”

That got him an approving nod from Chen (probably the word _honor_ , nothing seemed to make the Fire Nation happier) and a meaningful stare from Suki that gave Sokka a Very Good Feeling about what tonight’s activities would look like.

“You listening, kid?”

“Sorry!” Sokka blurted out. “I’m, um – yeah, listening! Attentively. Very attentively. Listening to you, attentively. With bated breath.”

Chen looked at him like he was on cactus juice, _WHICH_ , by the way, was totally unfair and totally defamatory to his character. “Yeah. Look, kid,” he rubbed his chin. “Doesn’t matter to me who can bend, you know? Doesn’t matter if you can’t, doesn’t matter if Prince Zuko can’t – doesn’t matter if you can’t, lady.”

“Song.”

“Right, yeah. Sorry.”

Suki accepted his apology with a stiff nod that looked extremely cool.

_(Suki is so cool / And so beautiful / Man, she makes me drool)_

“Look, what I’m saying is – you’re sixteen, and you’re not a bender, and you’re from the colonies. I’m loyal to the Fire Lord, you know? I’m not going to say good stuff about Prince Zuko. He’s a traitor. But he was a nice kid when the royal family came round here for their holidays. And that shit he got banished for? Might have been a good thing for people like you that he said it.”

“But what did he _say?_ ” Suki pressed, her eyes flashing with barely-concealed irritation and impatience. _Man_ , it was awesome when the intensity of her disapproval was focussed in a not-Sokka direction. He just got to stand there and enjoy the view.

“Something the Fire Lord disagreed with,” Chen said shortly. “So – something I’m not dumb enough to repeat or agree with. You two gonna buy anything, or do you not have stores in the colonies?”

Suki spent the entire trip back to the beach house complaining that she had been holding a basket containing rice, fruits, vegetables, spices, and a whole bunch of other stuff including blank scrolls (Sokka had given her a smooch for that – Suki was the _best_ ) for the best part of ten minutes whilst the storekeeper had been unhelpfully cryptic and mysterious, _but thanks for acting like we were just wasting_ your _time, mister!_

Later that night, around the campfire, it was only Sokka, Suki and Zuko left. Aang and Toph had gone to bed, and Katara had gone down to the beach to practice her bending under the moonlit sky. Sokka gave Suki a meaningful nod, and she gave him a similarly meaningful nod in return, as well as a bright smile. He stifled a sigh that was equal parts appreciative of how supportive and encouraging she was, and appreciative of how Suki looked in that Fire Nation outfit.

Man, she was just _so_ awesome.

As Suki unobtrusively made her way inside the house, Sokka made his way round the firepit to sit next to Zuko, on his right side. Zuko was funny about people sitting on his left, next to his scar. From what he could make out of the other boy’s face, what with the flickering shadows and the long hair, he was staring into the flames with a pensive expression.

“Mind if I join you?”

Zuko jerked back. “What? – oh, um. Okay.”

“Thanks,” Sokka nodded casually, stretching out a leg and resting his arm on his other knee. Then, he remembered The Incident in the tent, where he had talked with Zuko whilst holding a similar pose.

He coughed manfully and settled back onto his elbows, bringing his knees up. At least he was wearing more clothes this time around.

They sat in what seemed to Sokka to be companionable silence – or, at least, a less awkward silence than he was used to around Zuko.

_(“Pretty clouds.”_

_“Yeah… fluffy.”)_

It was Zuko who eventually broke the silence. “How was the market?”

Sokka briefly debated whether or not to just take the unsubtle direct approach, but decided against it. Prisons don’t have bison daycares.

“It was good,” he settled on. “We got all the stuff we wanted.”

“Seemed like a lot,” Zuko said. “Your list seemed, uh. Kind of long.”

“It was a lot,” Sokka agreed. “But Suki carried, like, _five_ bags’ worth of stuff up the hill.”

He tried to keep from swooning at the memory. That girl had biceps Sokka would have been proud of… had Sokka’s biceps themselves not already been extremely respectable.

“Suki’s badass,” Zuko offered.

There was a moment of shared reflection, remembering how a teenage girl danced across a prison riot and flung herself into danger with the kind of courage that comes with a complete self-confidence and utter refusal to countenance failure.

_(“Sorry, warden. You’re my prisoner now.”)_

_(And what was confident, indomitable Suki doing with him?_

_HIS invasion plan, HIS mistake –_

_“I fell for it! I used up all our time.”)_

The quiet rasp of Zuko’s voice brought him out of his reverie.

“You two are, um. You’re cool together.”

Sokka managed a grin. “She’s definitely the cool one.”

Zuko grinned back. It was a small thing. “Yeah.”

“The, uh – the shopkeeper. Guy named Chen. He knew you. Said you were pretty cool when you used to come round here as a kid.”

“Oh.”

Sokka inwardly winced. Zuko didn’t really do small talk. But, then again, he didn’t really do, you know. Talking. In general.

Sokka kind of crossed and uncrossed his ankles nervously as he waited for Zuko to say something.

“My Mom used to like his sweet buns.”

 _Surely_ Sokka had misheard that. “What?”

Zuko ducked his head. He wasn’t wearing his hood, but Sokka bet he would have been putting it up and hiding his face right about now.

“My, uh. My Mom. Then. She liked his baking. They were, um. Sweet. They were good.”

“Oh.” Sokka wasn’t really sure what to say to that. Sharing stories about fathers was one thing, but sharing stories about mothers was quite another, and he couldn’t say for sure whether it would be any better. “That’s cool. I like sweet buns.”

“I remember eating, like. Ten of them. And I got sick.”

Sokka nodded like he knew what to contribute to this conversation. “You, uh. You ever tried a silver sandwich?”

He counted it as a personal triumph when that small smile flickered on Zuko’s face. “Shut up.”

“Just saying.”

“You, um – did Chen look okay?”

Sokka shrugged. “Yeah, he seemed cool. Doing okay. He, um. Said some stuff about you, though.”

“Really.” Zuko’s tone was unreadable.

“He, uh –” Sokka struggled for a moment to think things through and find the… the _tactful_ way of putting it. “He said he thought you couldn’t bend.”

As soon as Sokka said it, he cringed. So much for thinking things through.

_This conversation had better have bison daycare!_

He was caught by surprised when Zuko laughed quietly. It was the sound of kindling slowly building to a crackling fire.

“Him and everyone else.”

Sokka didn’t say anything, because he wasn’t quite sure what to say. Zuko hadn’t sounded offended at the idea of someone questioning his bending, more, just – _resigned_.

“You can ask,” the firebender said – and he _was_ a firebender, of _course_ he could bend. But he was carefully avoiding Sokka’s eye with the kind of tension in his body that spoke to a lot of practice in not catching eye contact with people.

“I’m,” Sokka grasped for the words. “Not sure what to ask.”

“If I don’t want to answer, I won’t.”

But that didn’t really _help_ Sokka, not really. It gave him an entire ocean to swim in with no idea where the stink-and-sinks were.

“You’re a bender,” he said, in lieu of beginning with an actual question.

“Yeah.”

Okay, so maybe he deserved that.

“But people think you can’t bend.”

“Azula showed signs aged four,” Zuko said, looking straight ahead into the fire and speaking directly to it. “I was seven when I, uh. Sneezed. I set a curtain on fire.”

Sokka grinned. “Did you have to pull yourself together?”

“What?”

Oh. “Never mind.”

_(It was a funny joke, Toph! He just has no sense of humour!)_

“So, you were a firebender at seven,” Sokka rallied himself. “That’s good, right?”

“Um. I guess? But – Azula was always better.”

_(And if that wasn’t the truth when it came to little sisters.)_

Rather than talk smack about his little sister behind her back – because Sokka had _some_ standards, chief of them being to only say Good Things about Katara when she wasn’t around – he just cleared his throat. “Yeah, well, Toph’s nickname for your sister is Princess Crazy Blue, buddy, so…”

Sokka let his voice tail off dramatically, content to let the facts of the matter speak for themselves. But apparently the only thing that was less skilled at speaking than Zuko was The Facts, judging by the look of confusion on Zuko’s face. “What?”

“Never mind,” he repeated, inwardly sighing. “Just – you know. As comparisons go…”

“Well, I didn’t really have anyone else to compare myself to,” Zuko said. “My cousin, Lu Ten, he was – yeah. _No one_ compared to him.”

“I didn’t know you had a cousin,” Sokka said, interested despite himself. Trying to keep the conversation on track was hard enough when he was trying to avoid drawing attention to the direction the conversation was hopefully moving in, let alone when new stuff came up.

“Um, yeah. He was my Uncle’s son. He, um –” Zuko looked down and picked at the cuff of his shirt. “He died.”

“I’m sorry,” Sokka said. “It sounds like you two were close. If you – um. You thought he was cool.”

“He was really cool,” Zuko said softly. “He, um. He and Uncle, they – got me a master. To learn to fight.”

“So you could set more curtains on fire?” Sokka grinned.

Zuko ducked his head, but not so fast that Sokka missed the slight smile. “No, uh, with – you know.”

“With swords?”

He fiddled with that sleeve cuff again. “Yeah.”

“You know I don’t, like… I can’t bend, right?”

Zuko looked up quickly. “No, it’s – I don’t think less of you for that!”

Sokka held up a hand and cocked his head. “Relax, buddy. I got you good with Boomerang at the South Pole.”

Zuko’s mouth worked as if he had drunk one of Aang’s weird onion-and-banana juices. Or, at least, Zuko reacted as Sokka imagined one _would_ react to one of Aang’s weird onion-and-banana juices.

_(Look, Sokka loved food, but not enough to willingly drink that shit.)_

_Anyway._

“It’s whatever,” Sokka continued lazily. “And, look, I don’t know if you heard, but Master Piandao? He thinks I’m a pretty good swordsman.”

That got Zuko’s attention. “You trained with Master Piandao?”

“Sure did,” Sokka smirked. He maybe allowed himself a little bit of smugness at the impressed look on Zuko’s face. “He said I was a lot better than the last guy he trained.”

The look on Zuko’s face went from _impressed_ to _shuttered_ real quick. “Oh.” He turned back to the fire. “I, uh. That’s good. For you. That he thought you were a good student.”

Sokka winced. “No, wait, that’s – no, that’s not what I meant. I was messing.”

“What?”

“That Chen guy said Piandao taught you,” Sokka explained. “So, I, um. Kind of knew you were his student. It was a joke. But you didn’t know I knew, and you didn’t know it was a joke, so…”

“Oh.” Zuko attempted a weak smile. “That’s a good one.”

“But you trained with Piandao, right?” Sokka tried to recover the situation. “And he doesn’t just take on _anyone_. So you must have been good, right?”

“Uncle Iroh asked him to train me,” Zuko mumbled. “He kind of _had_ to take me on when the Dragon of the West asked him. Uncle said it was a personal favor.”

“Oh.” Sokka had just turned up and asked Master Piandao to train him. He hadn’t even had a reference letter. Maybe his entry standards had dropped in the past three years?

“But you’re good, right?” He tried again.

Zuko frowned, but Sokka recognised this as the same sort of frown he would make whenever Aang asked a question about how fire was life. It was his _Sifu Hotman frown_ , the “I am carefully considering your question and honor demands that I endeavour to answer it to the best of my ability” frown.

“I think so,” he said slowly. “Like, I can… Zhao thought I was pretty – but, um – that’s whatever. The point is, I, uh. It’s not _firebending_. You know?”

“Chen told us that your Dad thinks non-benders are kind of useless,” Sokka acknowledged. He maybe sounded a little blunt compared to the softly-softly approach he had been going for, but, whatever. Ozai was a dick, Sokka was a non-bender, and whatever weird family loyalty Zuko might or might not have had going on with his father didn’t mean Sokka was this, like, non-entity.

“My father’s, um. Yeah. I don’t – I don’t think non-benders are useless.”

“I know. But Chen said people thought you might not be able to bend. So, I guess – is that, like, a thing? For you?”

Sokka wasn’t even sure _what_ he was trying to ask with that question. The way Zuko looked into the fire and picked at the quickly-fraying cuff of his shirt, he wasn’t sure he was going to get an answer. That was cool.

The way Katara had freaked when Ty Lee had taken her bending away, Sokka had a pretty good idea what it looked like when benders got it in their heads that something as important as bending was just – _not an option_ anymore.

“I just wanted to be good at _something_.”

Zuko said it so quietly that Sokka had almost missed it. But then he took a breath and kept talking.

“Azula was – she bent before me. And she got all the advanced forms. She was practising the Agni’s Sunrise Over Cherry Trees form before I’d moved on from _candles_. And Father – she was lucky. And I wasn’t. And I wasn’t much of _anything_. And I just thought – even if I wasn’t a good bender, I could – lots of my people can’t afford a good firebending tutor. They don’t know how to bend well. So if I could show them that it _wasn’t_ – that _I_ wasn’t ashamed –”

He swallowed hard, the movement tugging at his throat in the firelight.

“There’s a simple honor in poverty,” he mumbled, pronouncing the words carefully and deliberately. “But I wanted to show people that… I wasn’t a good Crown Prince. I wasn’t good enough. But I – I wanted to show people that they could be good enough. Even if they weren’t good benders.”

Sokka’s Dad was the Chief of the Southern Water Tribe. He wasn’t a bender. Sokka’s mother had _died_ because benders was _important_. His baby sister had grown up knowing that she was the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe. The spirits had determined that a twelve-year-old boy should have to learn all four elements and defeat the Fire Lord, or the world would burn. The world wouldn’t be _able_ to burn if the Fire Lord wasn’t a bender.

He was just so _tired_ of it all.

“But, you know,” Zuko was still talking. “I _tried_ to be a good Prince. The perfect Prince. But I went to the meeting, and – I _tried_. And I – it wasn’t _enough_. And he –” he bit his lip, and he half-raised his left hand up to his shoulder –

_(Where he could pull a hood over his face?)_

Only to drop it back into his lap and fall silent again. And they were silent for a little while between them.

“I, um –” Sokka cleared his throat awkwardly. “Look, Chen was really confusing.”

“He makes good sticky buns, though.”

“Good for him,” he replied automatically. “But, uh – he saw I wasn’t a bender. And that I was young – I mean, I’m nearly seventeen, so I’m not _that_ young, but. You know.”

“I’m sixteen and a half.”

That made Zuko about three months older than Sokka. Koh’s _balls_. “Whatever. Uh. My point is, he told me that you said something. And got banished for it.”

“That’s… not quite how it happened.”

Sokka would have had to be blind _and_ deaf (no offence to Toph’s freaky-good earthbending senses) not to pick up on how Zuko Did Not Want To Talk About It. His voice was low and tight, and his fingers were picking at the seam of his sleeve with fervent vigour. He was staring into the fire and avoiding eye contact like his life depended upon it.

To be honest, Sokka had been expecting Zuko to pull up his defences _a lot_ sooner. They’d been talking for… a while. And not that Sokka was a little _kid_ or anything, but… a warrior needed his rest, you know?

And if Zuko didn’t want to talk about it, that was cool too.

“Okay,” he said gently, trying to keep his voice carefully disinterested. “That’s okay. But he said – like, I don’t know what it was. But he said it was a good thing for people like me that you said it. And, you know. I like me.

“And if your dad didn’t like it, then, you know. Your dad’s a dick. So he was probably wrong. So. I don’t know what all that means, but – it probably means you did the right thing,” Sokka finished awkwardly.

Look, _Katara_ did the pep talks and the hopeful stuff, okay? He did meat and sarcasm. He occasionally did boomerangs and ponytails. He also did Suki –

_(No, not going there, not after the ass-kicking she gave him last time she heard him say something like that.)_

“But it’s, uh – getting late,” he said awkwardly, dusting his pants down. “So I’m, uh. Yeah. Good talk.”

He got to his feet, and managed an awkward half-raised hand in a wave as he began to make his way around the fire.

“They weren’t benders.”

Sokka paused. “Hm?”

“The, um. Yeah. The people you’re talking about. They were young. Untrained. Not that you’re untrained! – but, uh. They loved the Fire Nation. It’s – they were good people. That’s probably what he meant. Chen. When he said they were people like you.”

Sokka took a moment to look at Zuko. His shoulders were hunched, and he was looking down at a patch of stonework a few feet to his left. He seemed utterly engrossed in this completely unremarkable part of the ground. His hair was falling into his face, and even though there didn’t seem to be anything there, his face was turned so he could examine the ground with his right eye.

_(Ah.)_

_Anyway._

_They were good people. People like you._

“Thanks, man,” Sokka decided eventually. “That’s – that’s really cool of you to say so.”

Zuko just shrugged. “Yeah.”

Sokka nodded slowly, before coming to a decision. “Night, Zuko.”

“Night, Sokka.”

He hovered for a moment longer, but – it was getting pretty late. And Zuko didn’t seem like he wanted to talk much more. And they’d talked a lot already. And Suki was probably in bed. And maybe even still awake –

 _Anyway_.


End file.
